Hachigata - The Assault

Mark, Ron, Phil and Andy came over this weekend and we played out the culmination of our Siege of Hachigata, 1568 campaign using The Pikeman's Lament.

The campaign has covered four games with each of the players taking on the role of a samurai commander attempting to gain personal honour whilst fighting on behalf of their lord. The assumption is that there are large armies involved on both sides and that our player characters' contingents form but a small part of them. However, key events of the siege do seem to have followed our boys around!

For the defending Hōjō clan Phil took on the role of Hōjō Tsebedetsu while Ron played Date Masamune. The attacking Takeda were represented by Takeda Mochinaga (Mark) and Honda Gozaemon (Andy).

Left to right: Takeda Mochinaga, Date Masamune, Hōjō 
Tsebedetsu, and Honda Gozaemon

This final part of the campaign saw the Takeda assault on the castle. I hadn't originally planned it that way. The historical siege ended when the Takeda gave up and their army marched away. My idea was to follow history and play two or three games set during the siege and maybe a couple more with Hōjō forces harassing the withdrawing Takeda. In the event, however, the Takeda were victorious in every skirmish of our table-top campaign. It seemed they'd have to have a go at assaulting the castle!

I thought events of previous battles should influence this one.

The Hōjō side's failure to steal Takeda Shingen's heirloom armour would give the Takeda the chance to reroll a failed Morale test as the unit concerned caught sight of the daimyo, magnificent in it.

Their success in digging a channel to divert the castle's water supply would give the Takeda the chance to infiltrate men into the castle. More on this later.

The capture of an outlying bastion (or yagura) would give the Takeda an additional, albeit immobile, unit in the game in the form of arquiebusiers firing from the tower.

Finally, I wanted to give the defenders a little something to reflect the stratagems used by defenders in Japanese siege warfare. I allocated them some two-inch-long strips of bamboo skewer. These represented a pile of logs that they could send crashing down to sweep attackers from the glacis. In the event, this was never used as no Takeda forces were in the right location. If I had the time again I might allow them to be used in any location but with a high target number for activation.

The game began with the defenders deploying their units lining the castle walls. This determined the attackers deployment area - basically at least six inches from the walls, further in areas where defending missile troops' maximum range extended beyond that line.

I had given the Takeda players the ability to infiltrate from the woods to the wall (and potentially into the castle) using the channel so laboriously dug by their miners in a previous fight. Mark ended up commanding this sector of the field and he was given two options. He could try to infiltrate a unit of samurai or he could employ ninja for the task.

With 13 inches to cover to reach the wall from the woods, samurai would move 2D10 inches whereas ninja would move 4D8 inches. Ninja were a better bet for penetrating the defences but taking them would cost Mark two points of honour!

Mark decided that the honour of victory would expunge any stain from using the untouchable assassins and made his way over to the dice tower to roll his 4D8:

 The resulting six inches of movement had the Hōjō snorting in derision.

The battle, then, would be fought with the Takeda attackers having to get across the walls without the assistance of a friendly force within.

The Hōjō tactic was to mainly use ashigaru to line the walls and to keep samurai in reserve.

A group of townsfolk was available and these were employed to guard the area of rough going where the stream had previously run through the watergate. Rated as "Clubmen" in TPL terms, they actual fight better in rough going than they do elsewhere!

The Takeda advanced on a broad front...

The defenders had a contingent of warrior monks who had the Wild Charge special rule. I declared that this would apply if the monks were actually lining the walls but not if they were held in reserve within the castle. 

Eventually Phil decided to let them have their head and they charged out into combat. They didn't last long but they seriously dented the Takeda line before their survivors were routed.

A couple of Takeda units made it across the wall but on both occasions they were surrounded and cut down. In the end Andy and Mark decided that they no longer had the strength needed to penetrate the castle's defences. The campaign would conclude, somewhat historically, with Takeda Shingen withdrawing to besiege the less imposing Takiyama castle instead.

At the end of the game we examined the Honour scores of the samurai captains involved. With a string of previous victories behind them, the two Takeda captains came out of the campaign with their reputations significantly improved. 

Takeda Mochinaga (Mark) lost two points for his unsuccessful use of Ninjas, another for acting without panache and a fourth for failing his boast. Still he finished the campaign with a total of 22 points of Honour.

Honda Gozaemon (Andy) had made three boasts before the battle and succeeded with one. He did act without panache at one point and, overall, lost two points of Honour ending with 30. Having started with 13 points, his was a tale of success despite a strategic reverse.

The Hōjō leaders were less successful overall.

Hōjō Tsebedetsu (Phil) was successful in his boast and on the winning side. He added six points of Honour to end the campaign with 16, the highest level he had achieved to date.

Date Masamune (Ron) was the only leader to have acted with panache throughout the battle but a failed boast saw his score unchanged overall on 17. Given that he started the campaign (as a veteran of many battles) on 18 points he had clearly failed to progress his career during the Siege of Hachigata.

And so the campaign is over. The players all said that they enjoyed the rules and would be happy to play some more The Pikeman's Lament (or its stablemates Lion/Dragon/Xenos Rampant) but next I think we may go on to try some Gangs of Rome.

More 15mm

The recycling of 15mm figures from the bag-of-white-metal-to-be-melted-down is mostly complete for now. 

I've painted these seventeenth century guys up as an approximation of Scottish troops in Swedish service during the Thirty Years War. They're based on what I could find about Mackay's regiment.

On Dex's advice I've put them on 40mm wide bases suitable for DBR and I suspect other popular sets for the period. In addition, being in sixes and twelves, they could potentially be used for The Pikeman's Lament. The singly based trumpeter in the rear would do well as a messenger needed for one of the Lion Rampant/TPL scenarios.

I'll get round to putting them on eBay shortly.

A foray into 15mm

I have some self-imposed rules to prevent my getting sidetracked into projects that take up too much space and effort. One of these is that I avoid adding new scales beyond the 6mm, 20mm and 28mm that I'm already heavily invested in. The only exception to this is that I have some legacy Hordes of the Things armies in 15mm scale.

A few years ago I acquired some 15mm English Civil War / Thirty Years War figures. Not sure where they came from, I suspect in a box of various figures that passed through several hands before and after mine. For a while these guys sat in a drawer but after a bit I decided they were poor quality and unlikely to get used so I consigned them to the bits-of-white-metal-to-get-melted-down-one-day bag.

Last week I came across them whilst looking for some scraps of metal to weight down the nose of a jet aircraft kit. I decided to paint a few of them.

I decided to paint them in colours roughly inspired by a plate in the Osprey book on Gustavus Adolphus's infantry - men of an English or Scottish mercenary regiment.

In line with the advice of Dex (who suggested they may be old Peter Laing models) I've based them in 40mm wide elements.

They'll be going on eBay shortly as I don't have any use for them. A few more may follow if I feel the urge to keep painting these little guys.

Siege of Hachigata - part 3

Here are some pictures of the latest episode of our occasional campaign based on the Siege of Hachigata. This is a little delayed - we played on 10th February.

The scenario this time was based on my reading about Samurai-age sieges. A measure used successfully at one siege was to dig a trench that drained off the castle's only water supply. The issue with a four-player The Pikeman's Lament campaign is adapting the two-player scenarios in the rule book. In this case I wrote this introduction:

The Takeda clan, under the famous warlord Takeda Shingen, are besieging the Hōjō clan’s castle at Hachigata in Musashi province.

Shingen has brought in miners from his home province and had them dig a trench through some woods near the castle. With a few more hours of digging they can connect the trench to the stream that runs under the castle walls. The trench will drain away the water and deprive the defenders of their main supply of drinking water.

Unfortunately this digging must take place in the open. Shingen has selected Honda Gozemon to lead a diversionary attack on an isolated yagura (tower or bastion). Hopefully this will distract the enemy while the miners complete their task. Just in case, Takeda Mochinaga is to wait in the woods and only intervene if the enemy menaces the miners.

The yagura was a 3D print - my most ambitious so far; it took over 24 hours to print.

In fact the roof sections didn't print properly. I rebuilt them with cardboard.

Andy, as Honda Gozemon, was tasked with launching the attack on the outlying bastion. He would gain three points of Honour if he took it. He would gain one more point if the attack was successful in diverting enemy attention long enough to allow Shingen's miners to complete their task.

Honda Gozemon's company - two units of samurai, one
of ashigaru with tempo (arquebus), and an artillery piece
among the trees.

Mark, as Takeda Mochinaga, was responsible for providing a close escort for the miners.

The new ditch approaches the stream
providing the castle with drinking water.

Phil, in the role of Hōjō Tsebedetsu, was tasked with defending the yagura with up to eight points worth of troops. He chose two units of ashigaru spearmen. Because the model is solid, we placed the defending units in contact with the base. This made it easier to determine which defending unit was being fired at or attacked in melee. 

Meanwhile Ron, who as usual was playing Date Masamune, was simply ordered to be on the lookout to oppose any enemy moves. This left him free to attack the miners when it became clear what they were up to.

Without going into too much detail, it took a long time for the defenders to realise what was going on. by the time Date switched his attention to the ditch-diggers emerging from the woods, they had made significant progress. 

In addition, Hōjō Tsebedetsu seemed reluctant to fully commit to the defence of the outlying tower.

In the end the bastion was captured and the ditch was completed to draw off the castle's water supply. Victory to the besiegers!

Andy/Honda Gozemon, it emerged, had made the "Charge!" boast before the game. He succeeded in declaring the first Attack of the game thus gaining one point of Honour in addition to the three for capturing the bastion and one for the success of the main mission. This takes him to 32 points in total, which in turn saw him gain a new ability. He is now "Patient"- his unit is immune to the Wild Charge condition (sadly there are no units with Wild Charge in the campaign though).

Mark/Takeda Mochinaga's 4 points of Honour (he didn't Boast) put him up to 21 points and he too got to roll for a new trait. He got "Favoured" giving him a fine gift from Takeda Shingen and five more points of Honour for a new total of 26!

Ron/Date Masamune had failed to take advantage of the situation and had also failed in his Boast to "Beat the butcher's bill" by killing or routing more units than he lost. The resulting loss of one point of Honour sees him on a new total of 13.

And finally we learned the reason for Hōjō Tsebedetsu's passivity. He had made the Boast "I shall brandish only my fan". By keeping his own unit out of the fight, he gained a very welcome three points of Honour, taking him up to a total of 10.

I originally planned to follow history, having the Takeda abandon the siege, with later games in the campaign taking place during their withdrawal. However, with all of the games so far ending in victory for the besiegers, I wonder if I should diverge from the established course of things. What do you think?

Christmas Games part one

I always try to get in a couple of games over the Christmas-New Year period. By the nature of things these have to be (a) multi-player, (b) capable of adjustment for last-minute drop-outs or arrivals, and (c) easy to pick up. 

On Wednesday 27th I arranged for two games; What A Cyberman (using an adaptation of the What A Cowboy rules) and Action on the Rippach (a semi-historical Thirty Years War fight using The Pikeman's Lament). Both games played quickly enough that we were able to play them through and then swap around so that everyone (except Jamie and I) got to play both games.

What A Cyberman is, of course, a Doctor Who themed game. In it 1920s Torchwood soldiers fight Cybermen in a tunnel complex while the Doctor goes about a mission of his own. First time around I refereed the game for Stuart, Matt, and John. It looked like the Cybermen were going to successfully kidnap the Doctor when, at the very last moment, one of the players managed to roll three sixes with their Action Dice and the Doctor escaped! As the first Pikeman's Lament game had just finished, we decided to call it a draw.

A Cybermat menaces the Doctor

New cave entrance bottom left

The new cave entrance (brown in the picture above) was added to give an alternative route into the heart of the tunnel system. It meant that it was harder for the Cybermen to bottle Torchwood up in the corridor leading from the rope bridge.

In the afternoon I played the role of Torchwood commander against Andy.  My ability to resist was hampered by Andy's skilful deployment of his Cybermats and my inability to roll decent numbers on a die. Despite the new route through the cave, Andy managed to restrict my movement significantly. His Cybermen successfully kidnapped the Doctor.

The scenario has the Doctor moving to a new location the moment anyone throws three or more sixes to activate. The first time I playtested the scenario this happened four times, which rather gave me a false impression of how the scenario typically plays out. I think next time I'll try it with the option to spend two Bonanza tokens to move the Doctor. This should see the Doctor move more frequently and allow for a bit more tactical decision-making by the players.

At the other end of the kitchen table we had a couple of games of The Pikeman's Lament based very loosely upon the fighting across the Rippach stream on the eve of the battle of Lützen.

In the morning session Andy's Swedes sought to cross the stream in the face of Jamie's Catholic trotters and Croat horse. This was the first time Andy had played the Swedes without the Wild Charge special rule and I believe he was much happier with at least a modicum of control over what his forces would try to do!

I always like to have a new terrain piece in any game I run and this was no exception. The river board (top, above and below) features a nice resin watermill by Baccus 6mm.

Jamie's Catholics were hampered in the first game when, shortly after the photograph below was taken, a random event meant that a quarter of their force was called away for other duties by the General.

In the afternoon we added a third board and additional forces to allow Jamie, Stuart, John and Matt to play a four-handed game.

For a set-up that was conceived as a portable option to allow play "down-the-pub", the Thirty Years War toys have proven very useful, albeit they are yet to see action in their intended environment.

More to follow later when I write up Friday's game.

Portable Wargaming

With the kitchen still out of action, I'm only going to get any wargaming in by virtue of "away fixtures".

We're just back from a North Yorkshire holiday with friends where my 6mm Thirty Years War forces provided a readily portable gaming option. Using The Pikeman's Lament we had a fun four-player battle between Swedish and Imperialist companies.

The companies were as follows, first the Swedes:

Ensign Nils Jonsson’s Company

A company of Swedish Horse (five units of Aggressive Gallopers) accompanied by some musketeers of the Blue Regiment (two units of Commanded Shot).

Nils Jonsson is a weasel of a man with little honour, much to the regret of his rich merchant father who paid for his officer’s commission. Sly: May refuse challenges without incurring the usual morale test.

Ensign Magnus Magnusson’s Company

A company of Swedish Horse (three units of Aggressive Gallopers) reinforced by some cuirassiers from Tott’s regiment (two units of elite trotters).

Magnus Magnusson is the son of a priest and seemingly blessed in some way as he always seems to escape danger. Blessed: Invulnerable to Lucky Blows.

And then the Catholics:

Ensign Jacopo Prizzi’s Company

A company of Imperialist cuirassiers (three units of Elite Trotters) accompanied by some Croat scouts (one unit of Veteran dragoons). Actually I got this wrong and deployed two units of Croats on the table!

Jacopo Prizzi is a hired mercenary officer from a foreign land. The men don’t trust him because of this. Foreigner: Starts with 15 points of Honour. Offers no Morale bonus to units within 12”.

Ensign Ludwig Kretschmar’s Company

A company of Imperialist infantry (two units of Pike and one of Shot) accompanied by a patrol from a dragoon regiment (three units of Dragoons).

Ludwig Kretschmar is a veteran officer and has survived many battles. He suffers from several old wounds that slow him down. Old Wound: Starts with 18 points of Honour. Killed by Lucky Blows on a score of 2 or 3.

At the near end of the table (above) the Swedes of Nils Jonssson's company (advancing cautiously from the left edge) were commanded by Andy. He pushed forward his commanded shot aiming to reach the bad going first but was beaten to it by the Imperialist shot commanded by Ludwig Kretschmar (Gus).

Gus kept his dragoons in reserve behind a wall of pikes while Andy did his best to keep his aggressive Swedish horse at a distance. The Wild Charge special rule could have seen them badly skewered.

At the far end of the table things were far less pedestrian. Mark and John fought a swirly cavalry melée that eventually saw the Catholic force completely wiped out and only the two groups from Tott's cuirassiers surviving on the Swedish side.

In the end the battlefield was a lot emptier than it had been. I'm not sure whether we called it a victory for either side. Both were pretty depleted by the end but everyone seem to enjoy the game.

Siege of Hachigata part two

We recently played the second game of our Siege of Hachigata campaign with The Pikeman's Lament. 

The scenario was based on Dan Mersey's scenario The Relic from Lion Rampant. The general background was as follows:

The Takeda clan, under the famous warlord Takeda Shingen, are besieging the Hōjō clan’s castle at Hachigata in Musashi province.

The Hōjō generals have discovered that the Takeda have brought with their army a suit of armour that belonged to a famous clan ancestor. Takeda Shingen plans to wear it when his troops capture the castle. 

A plan was hatched to steal the armour, in its carrying chest, and take it into the castle. Ninja were hired to sneak into the village where the armour is kept. They would obtain the armour and carry it out of the village where they would meet up with a small party of Date Masamune’s men who would escort the relic back to the castle.

Last night Masamune led his men out of the castle and they stealthily made their way to a position on the road outside the village. There, they waited for the Ninja to return. Something seems to have gone wrong though. Dawn is breaking when the Ninja finally show up with a pack horse carrying the armour chest. The Date Samurai will have to fight their way back to the castle through the besieging Takeda army. 

Hōjō Tsebedetsu, seeing what is about to happen, leads his men on a rescue mission.

The table set up was identical to that used in the previous game. We began with a unit of Ninja (I used the stats of A Forlorn Hope unit but applied the "Thrown Weapons" rule to reduce their shooting range to 6" and their cost by one point to five) positioned on the road just outside the village.

The remainder of Masamune's men were deployed along the road by which the Ninja would leave the village.

Unfortunately, Phil (aka Hōjō Tsebedetsu) was unable to be with us having been taken poorly on the way over. I was forced to stand in. Sorry Phil, both for your feeling poorly and for my dreadful performance as Tsebedetsu.

Andy (Honda Gozemon) and Mark (Takeda Mochinaga) were coming on from opposite sides of the table with the objective of stopping the enemy getting away with Uncle Shingen's armour. 

Advancing from the castle gate I sent forward a unit of dismounted Hōjō samurai into the marshy area to the left of the road. This was ideally positioned to lure Mochinaga's cavalry into a wild charge that would have seen them floundering in the mire and cut down by their ferocious opponents.

Stupidly, though, I sent forward a second unit that remained in the good going. This game Mark the choice of which unit to Wild Charge against! In the picture above you can see the result. My second Samurai unit (red sashimono, top right) has been reduced to two figures, one of whom is Hōjō Tsebedetsu!

That the Hōjō Ashigaru have gained a morale-boosting agitator (marked by the green token) was small compensation.

Nearer the village, Ron was working hard to try to get away with the packhorse carrying the armour box. The ninja were wiped out early and a samurai unit was escorting the relic. Threatened by a nearly intact mounted Samurai unit and some Ashigaru arquebusiers, it wouldn't be long before they were caught.

At this time Honda Gozemon decided to challenge Date Masamune to single combat (thus achieving one of his pre-game Boasts).

The result was a draw and both samurai returned to their units. 

As it happens, we'd discussed single combats prior to the game and came up with a house rule for this particular campaign. 

Normally in The Pikeman's Lament any officer's death results in a post-game roll on the Officer Casualties table with results ranging from dishonourable death to heroic escape. We weren't sure, though, that this fitted well with Samurai duels, which would often have ended with the losing fighter being beheaded! It would be fine, from an historical flavour point of view, to say that duels that end in a victory to either side are fatal to the loser but that would be less fun from the campaign point of view. In the end we decided that, in the case of duels only, we would roll twice on the Officer Casualties table and apply the worse result. This makes death a more likely outcome whilst still leaving open the possibility of escape.

Shortly after this, with my/Hōjō Tsebedetsu's forces too far away to assist, the last member of Date Masamune's samurai infantry unit was cut down. This took Ron's leader out and meant that the Takeda were able to safely retrieve the box of armour for the win.

This left us needing to roll for both Tsebedetsu and Masamune to see if they survived the battle. 

Hōjō Tsebedetsu, it emerged, had been captured whilst fighting honourably in combat. He was ransomed back by defenders at the cost of three points of Honour. He had also failed to achieve his boast that all of his units would succeed in making at least one attack during the game.

Date Masamune was also captured but only after he had been caught hiding in bushes alongside the river. Ransoming him back cost him 5 points of Honour. He had made no pre-game boast.

Meanwhile, Takeda Mochinaga had won the action and although he had acted without panache at one point and failed to achieve his boast (that he would kill or rout at least half of his enemy's units) he gained a net three points of Honour.

Honda Gozemon was the hero of the day, however. Also on the winning side, he achieved two boasts (The katana not the bow! - killing more enemy models in close combat than by missile fire; and Hear my lineage! - challenging an opposing leader to a duel). Acting without panache at one point was the only negative and he finished with an additional seven points of Honour!

After two Takeda wins, the campaign scores are now very spread out:

Honda Gozemon has 27 points 

Takeda Mochinaga has 17 points

Date Masamune has 14 points

Hōjō Tsebedetsu has 7 points.   

In addition, Honda Gozemon now has the Banzai! trait. This is my Japanese-appropriate replacement for the rules' Gå På allowing a unit within 12" of him to automatically pass a Move activation once per turn.

Given that the Takeda have now won two consecutive actions, I wonder if the next one should be an attempt to storm the castle (or at least to seize an isolated bastion)?   

Samurai At Last!

With the exception of a big-battle Hordes of the Things game in October 2003 and of a subset of the collection forming one of my HOTT armies for Berkeley a decade ago, my 15mm Samurai have seen virtually no use. In fact I believe they've been rebased more often that they've been used in anger. So when Andy, Mark, Phil and Ron came over on Saturday afternoon and we played a Samurai version of The Pikeman's Lament it was something of a relief to feel that they were at last earning their place in the collection.

The situation was roughly based on the siege of Hachigata in 1568. This to fit with the fact that the majority of my models bear the mon of either the Hōjō or Takeda clan. I allocated the players randomly and gave them made-up names of Samurai commanders, Mark and Andy being Takeda Mochinaga and Honda Gozemon respectively while Phil and Ron opposed them as Hōjō Tsededetsu and Ii Masamune. The latter was an error on my part as the figures Ron was using bore the Date clan mon. 

Our game used a four-player adaptation of the River Crossing scenario from the rule book. 

Phil and Ron led a sortie from the Hōjō-held castle and attempted to cross the river to demonstrate their superiority over Andy and Mark's Takeda besiegers.

I gave Phil and Ron an extra turn at the beginning of the game to simulate their surprise attack and to compensate for the fact that there were more cavalry in the Takeda force. In addition, the Hōjō sortie was somewhat slowed down by the need to exit from a single gateway.

The simple rules allowed the game to flow quickly and smoothly - more so than when we played the related Lion Rampant via Skype during the recent unpleasantness. 

We greatly enjoyed the table of bonuses and penalties for rolling boxcars or snake-eyes when activating units. In fact it seemed like the dice were determined to give us a taste of all of the options in that table. Twos and twelves seemed to come up more often than they should and the subsequent dice to select a particular random event were all over the place. In fact I think we saw three of the possible negative effects and all six of the positive.

A highlight was Andy's Honda samurai who repeatedly failed to activate when advancing through the woods and then suddenly withdrew from them altogether as a result of rolling a double-one. We decided that had been struck by the sublime beauty of the trees and had withdrawn to contemplate them a distance.

The action developed, as expected, into a confused melee along the river.

Lion Rampant has the concept of Boasts. These are chosen by the players before the game and if the player achieves the feat boasted of, they additional Honour (aka victory points). The Pikeman's Lament replaces these with Special Orders but "boasts" had such an appropriate ring to it for Samurai games that I decided to adapt the TPL list back into the boasts format, tweaking the language in places to make it more oriental-sounding.

Andy chose "the katana not the bow", undertaking to cause more casualties in melee than he did by shooting. This he achieved handsomely.

Ron selected "All out attack!" - a mistake as it required him to instigate close combat with all of his units; something his two groups of skirmishers weren't best suited to.

Finally (Phil, perhaps wisely, kept his own counsel before the fight) Mark chose to "Charge!" - undertaking to declare the game's first Attack. Unfortunately he was beaten to it when Ron's sole mounted samurai unit wildly charged into combat.

The game ended when the Hōjō forces were driven back across the river. It had looked good for them at one point. They had nearly all of their forces on the Takeda side when Ron rolled a double six activating a unit. This saw senior commanders sending out another unit to reinforce the sortie. The battle, rather then ending immediately, continued as now there were still Hōjō forces on their own side of the river!

In then end, despite heroic efforts by the Hōjō commanders, the Takeda were able to force a victory. The game was deemed a great success and there was some talk of playing further games to follow the emerging careers of our young samurai leaders.

Honda Gozemon emerged from the battle with most renown having achieved his boast on the winning side for a total of 7 points of Honour.  Takeda Mochinaga finished with, I think, four points - five for being on the winning side, -1 for failing in his Boast, another -1 for acting without panache during the advance to the river, and +1 for killing the loud-mouthed agitator who emerged from the ranks of the Ii skirmishers.

The two Hōjō leaders scored one point of Honour each as a result of dashing actions in the fighting but unfortunately Ron's leader was cut down during a cavalry melee. 

The Pikeman's Lament has an Officer Casualties table on which we need to roll to determine if he survived. I've just rolled on it and got double six revealing that Ii Masamune "escapes the enemy with mere scratches and ranges to get back to the castle thorough a daring and honourable adventure"! He gains +3 Honour and is available for the next game.

I am declaring (to fix my earlier error) that Masamune is, as a result of his exploits, formally adopted by a powerful clan and will henceforth be known as Date Masamune.

Ebor Lard 2021

Yesterday I drove up to Green Hammerton in North Yorkshire for my second (and the think the third) Ebor Lard celebration of all things Too Fat Lardies. A great selection of games was on offer and it's was wonderful to get together and talk games without having to rely upon a Zoom link.

In the morning I was honoured to play in Richard Clarke's playtest of the rules to appear in Infamy Infamy book 2. Bob Connor and I ran a Roman force against Carthaginians commanded by Ned Willett and Mark Pullan.

Bob commanded the Hastati

I commanded the velites - some of them seen
here menaced by Numidian horse 

Nice architecture

The Carthaginians were accompanied by Fat Nicholas the elephant; a striking force of extraordinary magnitude.

I did my best to weaken him with my skirmishers but even so he crashed into Bob's legionaries with considerable force and disrupted their formation somewhat.

In then end, I think the Romans scraped a victory in a damned-close-run little action. It was excellently run by Richard despite what sounded like a hangover of biblical proportions!

I took a few pictures of other games including John Elwen's What A Mecha:

Charley Walker's Kiss Me Hardy:

Jeremy (Virtual Lard) Short put on a game using Shattered Shields, a Lard-inspired fantasy set:

Our host John Savage ran another of his beautiful Infamy Infamy games, this time a winter action between Romans and Britons:

Simon Walker ran a very nice looking Sharp Practice game set during the Maori Wars:

In the afternoon I had my first ever game of Dux Britanniarum, albeit in the form of a Samurai variant called Seven Spears. This was most engagingly run by Malcolm Bowe. As far as I know he didn't have a hangover.

This time Ned and I were on the same side and we were opposed by Paul Pettit and Jamie Tattersall. I suspect I contributed to our defeat as I couldn't hear most of the rules and scenario explanations due to the background noise and my failing hearing. Great fun though!

That was my first Lard event as a player only. I thoroughly enjoyed it but I'm definitely looking forward to running Cortina at Matamoros at Steel Lard next month.